


Darkness

by Hope



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-16
Updated: 2002-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:32:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo's having trouble coping with the after-effects of the destruction of the ring.  Set during RotK.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tower

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta reader, Sheba.

"Frodo?"

The voice somehow penetrates the fog around him, and he draws a shuddering breath.

"Frodo, are you up there?" The voice grows louder, accompanied by the scraping of a wooden ladder against stone, and a slight thud as it's laid upon the lip of the open trapdoor.

He is in the tower. _A_ tower. He didn't know how he had got there, or how long he'd been there… or how anyone could have found him.

"There you are." The voice is smooth, rich. Deep. "Sam's worried sick. We've been looking everywhere."

He lets out something that's stuck in his throat like bile, something he thinks might be a laugh but ends up as a bitter gasp that flops around the stuffy chamber like a suffocating fish. He senses the figure behind him pause.

"Frodo?"

A warm hand - no, more than warm, it fairly burns his skin - rests on his shoulder and is withdrawn as he flinches under it.

"What is troubling you, my friend?"

"Nothing." The word is harsh, as rough-edged as his actions as he turns, almost violently, to face the other. "Why are you here?"

A flicker of something unidentifiable crosses the man's face, but the lines of his forehead are immediately stretched to smoothness again as his face takes on, once more, its typical elven closeness.

"Your hand. I need to check it again - make sure everything's in order, change the bandages . . ."

Frodo's face is blank as he folds his arms, the nonchalance of the action not managing to hide the firmness with which his right hand is clenched under his left armpit.

"Everything's fine, no need to check it."

Aragorn's brow furrows, not hiding his concern. "Well I should at least change the dressing--"

"No."

The answer is abrupt, and it stifles in the deadened air of the small room at the top of the tower. Aragorn's breathing is loud and even in the throbbing silence.

Frodo tries to laugh and once again comes up with the sharp gasping noise, tearing the thickness pressing around them. He turns away, but the man grips his upper arm, pulling it towards him and managing to extract the hobbit's hand from where it's tucked away.

Almost immediately, and with more strength than the man had anticipated (_even after all I've witnessed_ says the man's brief self-deprecating expression), Frodo rips out of Aragorn's grasp. But his brief hold has been long enough.

"It is infected," Aragorn says to the hobbit's tense back. He has retreated as far from the ranger as possible, facing the wall of the chamber. There are no windows in this tower. The light bleeds in and soaks the room dully through a few arrow-slits.

"Frodo." The ranger's - the _king's_ \- voice is deceptively calm, and to Frodo it seems to be coming from a great distance. The slash of impure scarlet - Frodo's blood - on dirty white dressings flashes in the air between then, is imprinted on their eyes, even as the slightly sweet, pungent smell (however briefly sensed) lingers in the man's nostrils.

The darkness presses in on Frodo and he is amazed he can still hear the sounds of Aragorn turning and retreating to the trapdoor through the rushing in his ears.

"Don't -" he gasps, as if drowning, and finds himself bending, folding in as he feels the ranger's presence leave - leave - leaving him lost, alone, empty…

"Don't leave . . ." His voice is someone else's - something else's - a whimper of some creature wounded and lost, lost…

"What is it?" Aragorn pauses in his in his descent, and his voice comes from somewhere low in the ground, as if the man is speaking to him from the grave.

"Help me." And this time he is a wounded creature, definitely wounded, gasping in pain. Pain. His eyes squeeze tighter and he gasps as he recognises it, welcomes it.

"What can I do?" The voice is calm, and closer this time, and warm on the back of his neck, but not touching . . .

"Help me . . . I need . . ."

"What do you need?"

"Something . . . Anything . . . I need . . ."

Something. Anything. Something to fill this void that was once Frodo Baggins. This husk. Shell. Empty and burnt out. Scoured by flames.

"I need to feel . . ."

"Feel what?"

The voice was still steady and calm. How could he explain? _I need to feel_ . . . Something. Anything.

"Aragorn, please -" The warmth behind him, and the tone of his own voice causes him to shiver, remembering . . .

A different kind of warmth. A different kind of heat. Of pain, stoked with every thrusting movement, feeling the soft mattress below him only as burning stone, the fresh linens only as foul rags . . . His teeth clenched against the screams to stop any of that feeling escaping as much as to not alert Sam, sleeping in nearby chambers.

He reaches up with his left hand - the right once more entrapped under his armpit - moving almost sluggishly in the thick air of the tower, fingering tenderness, a kind of poignant pain caused by the other's beard as he had mouthed the pale, scarred neck. Frodo remembered flinching and shying from that, even as they were at their most intimate.

He remembers afterwards - _was it only a night ago?_ \- the man buckling back on his sword belt and yes, that had helped, but despite his brazen ugliness, the soldier was still too beautiful. Too beautiful for what Frodo had wanted. The hobbit had given the man something before he had left, something to answer that question, that uninterpretable look in man's eyes . . . Though what a soldier would do with fine robes of highest weave made to fit a child, who knew . . .

The man had accepted though, silently. He did not touch the hobbit as he left the chambers. His features had faded from Frodo's mind immediately.

Alone again, Frodo had vomited. Retching in the heady-smelling chamber. Empty again.

And here he was, back in the tower - _a_ tower - with a different man behind him, and now he wasn't so unsure of how he had come to be here. How even in his blindness, in his darkness, his soul - or lack thereof - had sought out this place. This place that could be a white reflection - _a glimmering spike of pearl and silver_ were the words his memory somehow conjured - of the darker place.

_I need to feel._

He could feel the echo of the pain of that darker place sometimes, if he tried hard enough, searched long enough. And that was welcome. The reverberations of the echo made him feel, just for a moment, that the abyss wasn't, after all, empty. That pain, that pain. He could remember little of what occurred after that pain, and even less of what he had felt. That pain, it seemed, was the last thing he had felt before his very soul had become entrapped within a small gold band and cast into flames.

But he's drowning now, and the echoes of that pain are no longer enough, and it's as if his body is reaching up from inside of him, trying to come out of his mouth, turning him inside out in an effort to fill that void, that vacuum where he used to exist.

And it's not pain he feels when huge, strong arms band around his chest, and it's so easy to turn and to sob into the familiar shoulder (even though its now brocade-covered), to gasp in the beloved scent that takes him back to other memories… _"This is beyond my skill to heal"_ and he sobs harder.

Thick, calloused hands delve into his hair and stay there, cupping his head like a babe whose neck isn't strong enough yet, until the heaves subside into deep, gasping breaths. Gently, Aragorn pushes Frodo slightly back - somehow, they are crouched on the floor now - and takes the hobbit's tiny, maimed hand tenderly in his own. He examines the stained bandage briefly before giving Frodo a tiny smile.

"You won't have any objections this time, I hope, to me getting some athelas-water to soak this in? I'm afraid the bandages won't come off very painlessly on their own."

Frodo grimaces slightly and Aragorn is immediately serious again.

"Frodo," he says levelly. "Why do you cause yourself so much pain? Your quest is over. You have succeeded. You must allow yourself relief."

Frodo looks away from him and laughs bitterly, a sound like something tearing. His hand remains dwarfed in Aragorn's palm.

"Relief!" he responds breathlessly. "I've forgotten what that is." His voice quiets to a whisper, as if it is retreating back into his body rather than being exhaled. "For a while there was only pain, and now even that is fading." His eyes cloud over as if he is seeing something in the distance. _Or not seeing at all_. Aragorn's heart clenches.

"It is gone forever." The hobbit's voice is ethereal, barely audible, making the ranger shiver with something he had never thought to feel since he had called the hosts of the dead up behind him. "And now all is dark and empty."


	2. Echoes in the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo's still having trouble coping with the after-effects of the destruction of the ring, but perhaps this time Sam can help...

Something echoes in the darkness around him as he comes awake, something he knows came from himself, but he can't grasp it, can't call it back, no matter how hard he strains.

Darkness. It's dark. It's so dark. He can hear his hoarse breathing laugh back at him from the shadows; he can't hear his heart beating.

"Hush now," murmurs a heavy-laden voice. "I'm here."

The bed shifts slightly, tilting Frodo's motionless body towards the weight that settles beside him. Rough, calloused hands seek out his face in the darkness, forging through shadow to graze pale skin with a gentle touch. Short, brown fingers comb through his hair.

Frodo shudders, and the voice rises thickly again, like dough.

"What you been dreaming about now, Mr Frodo? You know it's of no use now, it's all over and done with. Just rest easy."

"It's not that." Frodo's voice is harsh and grating, scraping the darkness even as Sam's had soothed it.

"What, then?" Strong, familiar arms slide around him easily, gathering his trembling body closer. Frodo flinches, and Sam betrays his awareness of it through an involuntary pause before resuming his caresses. But his touch isn't as certain now.

"It's nothing." Frodo's voice is almost a bark this time, and he tries to subdue it. "I'm fine. Go back to bed."

This time it's Sam who flinches, and Frodo can feel it move through every inch of the other's body, pressed along his own. He closes his eyes again, seeking perhaps a darkness less black, less mocking, and swallows as Sam shifts away from him stiffly, feeling it as if part of his own body is being torn away. Pain.

"Mr Frodo . . ." Sam's voice comes from above him now, and, beneath the formality, Frodo can sense some other emotion, some other motive. He can picture Sam's pose even in the darkness - kneeling above and beside him, hands clenched tightly before his chest to trap their ceaseless movement.

"Let me help you. Let me -" Sam stops suddenly, swallows audibly. "I know why you . . . Why you take those men to your bed."

Every muscle tenses in Frodo's body, and he almost feels as if he will rise up off the mattress. _Sam . . . - Sam - . . . could he possibly know? Could he possibly understand?_ The darkness rings in his ears, drowning out his own sounds of life.

Sam forces a laugh, mistakes his master's sudden thrumming stillness. "You know you couldn't hide it from your old Sam, Master Frodo. He ain't as dim as his Gaffer would have him believe." Another laugh, forced into the hissing darkness. "I know why you do it, Mr Frodo."

Frodo's breathing stops. _Sam? Sam? Could he? Sam -_

"And I say you don't need them, if you'll pardon my forwardness, Mr Frodo . . . Not when you've got your Sam here." His voice deepens, thickens. Frodo feels the gardener's breath on his face as the other leans closer over him. "I can take care of you better than any of them ever could."

But maybe . . . Maybe . . . Yes. Maybe Sam *wasn't* as ignorant... as _innocent_ as the Gaffer fondly expressed, maybe he _did_ understand, maybe he _did_ know what it was that Frodo desired, what he _needed_ . . .

"And you should know, Frodo, that I've more love for you than any of them could ever dream of givin' you."

_No . . ._

Frodo realises he must have spoken aloud, as if the word were sucked out of him by Sam's mouth, so warm, so real, so sudden on his own. He didn't. He didn't understand.

"No," he whispers again, despair and need cloying in the single word, and he turns away, _has_ to turn away from a sweetness so overpowering that he clenches his left hand into a fist, gripping tight. The ragged nails leave angry welts on his palm. He can't. He _can't_.

"Beggin' your pardon, Mr Frodo sir." Sam's voice is part of the darkness now, and each word cuts into Frodo, cuts in deep, and the pain of it is somehow more than he can bear.

The shadow rushes in to fill the vacuum around Frodo as Sam rises and clambers down from the impossibly high bed. "I'd best be returnin' to my own bed."

And how could he bear this, how could he bear this . . .? The painless agony of the paradox screeching through the very fibre of his being: the emptiness itself a pain. The only way to banish it was to bring more pain . . . It was more than he could bear.

"_Sam_ . . ." The echoes of this are now recognisable, somehow closer in his reach, not just threads in the darkness . . .

And somehow he's not in bed any more, not turned away from Sam, but crushed against him, as if he can dissolve into the other's flesh and be consumed . . . And Sam's hands are on him now, sliding over his bare arms, onto his shoulders, collaring around his neck and soothing away the burning cold of the darkness.

And he remembers. He remembers now, and gasps at the shock of something he thought could only be pain, but it isn't, oh it isn't . . .

The very closeness of him. Even dizzy and deranged as he was with the fumes and the weight that strove to break him, he could still feel the warmth of Sam beneath him, somehow more real than the heat of the small gold band pressed between his chest and Sam's back. And Sam's heartbeat - the pulse Frodo could feel in his temple, resting on Sam's neck - was clearer, more _real_ than the incessant, whispering demands of the Ring. And Sam's voice, oh Valar, his voice was enough to banish the ashes in Frodo's mouth, the darkness in his heart.

_"Come on, Mr Frodo dear! Sam will give you a ride. Just tell him where to go and he'll go."_ ^

The memory was clear, so clear and alive, more than the pain of the tower, and he remembered it, he _remembered_ it, not with the memory of wronged nerves in his flesh, but with something deeper. Something strong, and not empty.

_I need . . . Something. Anything._

Love.

END

* * *

  
^ taken directly from "Return of the King", Book VI, chapter 3. 


	3. Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's thoughts and memories as he watches Frodo sleep. Morning after "Echoes in the Darkness".

He looks down at the body lying beside him, a splash of luminescence in the breathing darkness. It's still now, still as death, and Sam has to press his head to it's chest - fragile as a bird's - to assure himself that Frodo does indeed still breathe - in . . . out . . . - the pause between each stretching into the dark like falling into a chasm. This deathly stillness, perhaps, is preferable to the writhing and curling that makes his master gasp out his name as if he is drowning, as if the dreams and memories within him are coiling and striking like snakes, trying to escape, to press out and burst the skin and flesh that they're imprisoned within . . .

No. No. Death is never better than life. Never preferable, even to the relentlessness of the darkness struggling to escape, and yet - and yet . . .

Sam involuntarily compares in his mind the still purity of his master's body, shrouded with an elf-like glow, lying in repose on the rocky path leading from a foul-smelling lair . . . to the broken figure, blood-soaked by the light of the tower. And yet - and yet - _oh Frodo_ . . . Not soaked enough to hide the blackness of real blood staining the pale thighs, pooling stickily in the filth of the floor . . .

Sam shakes his head firmly, struggling to banish the images that have haunted his own dreams even in the blossoming gardens of Ithilien, let alone the stately opulence of Minas Tirith . . .

It's dark in here. So dark. Too dark.

Holding his breath, Sam gently untangles his arms from around his master's body, gritting his teeth tightly at the sudden loss of the soft curls that seem to belong pressed against his chest. Careful not to let the movement of the bed disturb Frodo, he rises and pads silently - almost swimming through the darkness - toward where he remembers the window to be. Struggling, he pulls back the curtains - huge and velvet and heavy as the darkness - and pushes against the shutters, hard, grunting until they suddenly spring outward.

Sam squeezes his eyes closed against the brilliance of the morning - surely brighter than Galadriel's phial, for the pain it causes him - but he soon adjusts to the light and laughs at the thought, fingers of fresh air tickling at his face, his hair, eagerly rushing into his mouth.

A moan from the bed flushes all other thought from Sam's mind, and he immediately shifts his gaze to see Frodo turn his head away from the light streaming in, pressing the side of his face into the pillow before returning to stillness. Climbing back onto the bed to kneel beside him, Sam's breath catches. He could believe, he could believe now, that . . . that this was Frodo's body before him, Frodo's empty body, the soul departed, that . . . that . . . Frodo was dead. And yet - and yet . . . He remembers being sure, being sure of Frodo's death, remembers the coldness of the forehead as he pressed his hand, his lips to it. And yet, and yet . . . he would almost prefer that death to this. Prefer the smooth alabaster of the clear skin in that death to the paper-thinness of this. Prefer the whiteness, and the elf-glow to this lacework of blue veins clearly showing through unearthly transparency.

No, no - never prefer death. Never.

"Mr Frodo, me dear me dear . . . don't go where I can't follow," He murmurs involuntarily, his voice rough from the long silence.

The light from the sun is white, white and harsh as it pours onto Frodo's body, banishing all shadow caused by the too-prominent ribs and straining collar bone, and Sam freezes as Frodo flops over onto his front. His shoulder blades are like crescent indents, as if a pair of giant hands had gripped him and pressed thumbnails into the pristine whiteness of his back. Sam's eyes slide down further, and he traps a noise behind his teeth as he takes in the bruises on his master's hips - as if, indeed, huge hands had gripped him, pressed into him . . . He pulls the blankets up gently, covering the sleeping hobbit up to his shoulders. Frodo's face is now buried in the pillow, only a mop of dark hair and the curve of a single pointed ear visible.

Sam's body aches with the pain of the past few days, aches with the nights he spent sleepless; at first due to the tumult in his own mind (_They had always slept together . . . well, at least since leaving the Fellowship, and for more than just safety and warmth . . . Why had Frodo dismissed him?_) and then because of the noises from the adjoining room, noises that seemed barely human - or hobbit-like. Animalistic grunts, and the creaking furniture as if in protest. He had almost run, that first night, run to Frodo's aid, and had got as far as the stout, carved oaken door before he had realised what the noises were. What they meant. What they meant was going on in the room next to his. Frodo's room.

He had rested against that door for a long time - carvings pressing into and branding his forehead, his fingertips rested lightly on the oak even as his knees creaked in protest at the coldness of the stone floor. Images of blood and pale skin came unbidden behind his closed eyelids, and he barely managed to stand when those sounds finally ceased, managed to stand and somehow leave the room (_his_ room - and that still hurt) to hide within the pockets of shadow in the hall outside. He didn't have to wait long before a figure emerged from Frodo's room, closing the door softly behind it. Sam had frozen - if possible, as still as he was - when the man strode into one of the haloes of light the evenly spaced torches cast. Tall, bearded, scarred, humming absently to himself as he spun a circlet of silver on one of his rough, calloused fingers. A circlet of silver Sam had last seen nestled amongst dark curls. It glinted gold in the torchlight, its shining reflected by the white tree and stars on the man's slightly stained tunic.

And there had been many nights after that, many different men wandering off bemusedly when the corridors were otherwise empty, late at night or early morning.

And that had hurt. That had hurt so much. Oh Frodo, _Frodo_ . . .

He runs a finger down the knobby line of Frodo's spine, then snatches a hand back, seeing something he did not want to see . . . Remembering someone - some_thing_ his mind violently insists - whose bones jutted out just so, whose teeth were bared as Frodo's sometimes were, when he believed no one was watching, when his eyes clouded with the darkness inside him. But Sam was always watching.

It is dark in the room, dark and foul-smelling as the spider's lair, and the sunlight isn't as strong as Galadriel's phial after all, and their hands do not meet and clasp. And the darkness is blacker inside Frodo, and Sam can almost see it as it pulses through his veins, see it through the skin stretched painfully over the frame of seemingly mismatched bones. In his heart Sam sobs and mourns, screaming a lament for all that has been lost, and yet . . . And yet . . .

He cannot forget the feel of this body pressing into him in the darkness, the heat of its desperation and the wetness of its tears, embracing him, needing him, when he had thought all was lost in the darkness . . . He cannot forget the taste of the other's blood as they stood together on the mountainside, fumes scouring their exhausted lungs, and yet it isn't the bucking and writhing of the earth that stands clearest in his memory - nor the unbearable heat as evil was consumed . . . Rather, it was the look in the other's eyes. Frodo's eyes. For it indeed was Frodo, back again, not untouched but still there, still present, still _alive_, and it was that life he could taste in the coppery saltiness as he kissed his master's wounded hand. _"I am with you, Master,"_ he remembered himself saying as he had gently laid the hand over his heart. _"And you're with me."_

At the end of all things. Sam had never, could never believe that. Until perhaps now . . .

Frodo stirs. "Sam . . ." he murmurs, his voice soft and smooth, cloyed with sleep like honey in the back of his throat. He looks up at Sam with drowsy eyes, squinted slightly at the brightness. The sun casts her light directly on his head now, as it has caressed the length of his body as he slept and she rose.

"Good morning," Sam smiles, Frodo filling his sight, filling his mind. "Would you like some breakfast?"


	4. Falling (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo's on the edge. Set during RotK (in Minas Tirith)

Sam woke, his opening eyes the only movement he made. The rest of his body was still, thick with sleep, swaddled as if it were just another extension of the bed he was immersed in.

Bed. Sleep. He had been asleep.

Waking a little more, he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, to inhale in that familiar, beloved scent as much as to still the joy rising in him, and rolled over, arm outstretched to -

His heart leapt in an entirely different way as he shot upright, shaking his head to clear it of the muffling remnants of sleep. He stared down at the emptiness beside him, the sheet as wrinkled as his brow.

Frodo. Frodo.

He pressed his hand to where Frodo ought to have been. _Don't be a fool, Samwise Gamgee, you think he's wearin' some invisible ring?_ He shuddered at the thought, as if trying to shake the coldness off his bones, and raised his head to quickly search the rest of the room. Empty. Bare as ever. The only movement came from Sam's shirt, abandoned on the floor in a shallow pool of indigo, reflecting the night sky through the window. The shirt moved, seemingly with a will of its own, twitching and waving its arms slightly as a stronger gust pushed and pulled at it.

Frodo. _Frodo_.

The name pounded like a racing heartbeat within him as he near threw himself out of the bed, shivering in the cold as he searched the room, begging for something his eyes might have missed under the bed, in the shadows of the fireplace, behind the open door of his own room.

"Frodo." He said it aloud this time, and it struck the dead air of the chamber as soon as it left his lips. The wind blew harder for a moment, pushing into the chamber almost violently as it pried its fingers into the deepest corners of shadow in the room, but the sickening smell of a tomb still crawled in Sam's nostrils. The door slammed shut.

Frodo.

Snatching up his shirt from its writhing on the floor, Sam pulled it on with numb, shaking hands before yanking open the outer door. The warm, flickering light of the hall was more comforting than the cool darkness of the room, and Sam slowed his mad pace as it stroked the panic from his mind. Food. Frodo had gone to get food. Or to bathe. Or to see Strider. Or to . . . Or to . . .

_Frodo. Frodo._

He swallowed convulsively, biting back the bitter taste flooding his mouth.

"Please, please," he whispered, not knowing who or what he was begging for, then; "Frodo, _Frodo _. . ."

**********

"Gandalf, I would talk to you a moment, if you can spare it," asked the ranger softly as the various dignitaries filed out of the chamber.

"Of course. What's troubling you, my friend?" The edges of a smile still slept in the creases of the wizard's mouth despite his sombre tone, and Aragorn inwardly shook his head, comparing this bright one before him to Gandalf the Grey. But there were more important things to think about right now. And they had nothing to do with the matters of state and land he had been discussing all afternoon.

"I'm concerned for Frodo," the former ranger said soberly, and the wizard's eyebrows drew in, puckered, no trace of laughter in the bristly growths.

"Is it his wound?"

"Well, yes, and other things . . . I fear a deeper wound, Gandalf. Something not even I can reach. Not to soothe, not to heal."

"A deeper wound?" The wizard's brow drew tighter still. "He lived in the shadow for a long time, Aragorn, we cannot expect him to be cleansed and pure as if it never was."

"But to the extent that he harms himself? That he shuns all that is - or was - close and beloved to him in the search of pain?"

"Has he spoken to you of this himself?"

"No, but -" the king swallowed and breathed deep before continuing.

"I've heard talk in the barracks of how he's been taking men to his bed. Taking soldiers."

There was silence for a moment, and then: "He of all people deserves pleasure." But there was a note of uncertainty in the wizard's voice. Aragorn shook his head.

"From the rumours I've heard, he does it not for pleasure." He paused, awaiting a response, and then continued. "Men talk of how he won't allow them to touch him, just . . . take him. And of how - it does not arouse him. And he pays them, when they're done, and they leave straight after."

"Pays them?"

"Ceremonial robes, ornaments . . . Apparently he even tried to give away the mithril shirt, but the man refused to take it." His mouth twisted briefly in bitter mirth. "Though he did not refuse to take Frodo himself."

"What about the other hobbits? Sam? Does he know of it?"

"I suspect so," stated Aragorn, the wizard's sharp questioning rousing him out of dark contemplation. "Pippin, of course, is a Knight of the Citadel himself, and I doubt he could have missed the rumours around the guard room."

"And if Pippin knows, Merry knows," a grin almost twitched Gandalf's mouth. Almost. "But what of Sam?"

Aragorn thought back to the previous day, to the soft, almost undetectable (but not to a ranger's ears) sound of knocking on the thick, oaken door of his study. To the small figure that had walked in after the servant's hasty introduction, to his hand-wringing, sleepless, dark-smudged desperation, and his _Strider . . . I mean, sir, I mean . . . your- your majesty, sorry to disturb you, but . . . it's Frodo. Mr Frodo._

"Sam knows," he answered Gandalf firmly. "Although he would say nothing, rather preferring to preserve his master's honour."

Gandalf was silent.

"His hand is infected - Frodo's, I mean. Sam sought me out yesterday because it was time for me to check on the wound, change the bandages - but Frodo wasn't to be found." He watched Gandalf, ready to gauge the wizard's reaction to his next words, wondering if he would draw the same conclusions as the ranger. "I found him, though . . . in the tower. The city's highest tower. Ecthellion."

"Cirith Ungol," Gandalf muttered, almost spitting the bitter words out, seeming to speak to himself rather than Aragorn.

Perhaps, then, Aragorn thought, he was correct in his own musings . . .

"And? What state was he in?"

Aragorn shook his head. "Not a good one. The wound was infected, and he was clearly ill - unwell in both mind and body."

"Where is he now? I take it you have been tending him since," the wizard asked, rising from his chair as if to leave and attend the hobbit immediately.

Aragorn remained seated. He shook his head again, staring up at Gandalf. "I left to get athelas-water to soak the bandages off, but when I returned he was gone. I went to see if he had returned to his chambers. Sam was there and told me his master had returned and was sleeping. He said he would send word when Frodo was awake."

"And has he?"

"No, Frodo and Sam have both been shut up in Frodo's chamber all day. I thought it best not to disturb them - if anyone could heal a sickness in Frodo's spirit, it would be Sam."

Gandalf muttered again. "True," he said out loud, "but the wounds of the flesh need tending just as much. Especially if they are infected."

Aragorn nodded firmly. "I have been lax with it, I ought to have been tending my patients rather than matters of state."

Gandalf shook himself and moved to the door. "Perhaps. But whatever you - or I - have already done - or not done . . . We shouldn't leave it any longer. Come, we'll go to Frodo now and see to the healing of his body. This much, at least, we owe him."

**********

Pippin sang, his high voice spilling over the lip of the wall and into the city like the ale sloshing out of the neck of the stoneware jar as he swung it heartily. Merry's arm was slung about his shoulder as his voice entwined with his cousin's, rejoicing in the many redeeming properties of the amber liquid.

"Frodo . . . Frodo," Merry called, slurring slightly. "Come back down here and get some of this marvellous ale!" He cocked his head slightly, a fuzzily confused expression crossing his face. "Not as good as the Green Dragon, o'course, but still . . . these Gondorianan . . . Gondorinian . . . these draughts are mighty potent."

Frodo didn't move. Merry frowned, squinting slightly - though the night sky held no moon - up at the crouched figure. He was unsure of how Frodo had managed to get up that high (well, high for a hobbit), perched - or rather curled on top of one of the teeth sticking up on the crenellated wall. Hobbits didn't like heights. Sober or not.

Merry grunted as Pippin stumbled against him in a finale, then fell silent as he too peered up at Frodo. The still figure of their cousin was an uneven mass of darkness silhouetted against the indigo softness of the vast sky. The flickering whiteness of the stars seemed to pierce the smoothness of it, as if they were straining down to prick the white city and those within it.

"Don't you think you should come down?" Pippin asked, after some thought on the matter. "Even Merry and I like some mischief,"

"And you taught us all we know," Merry interjected eagerly.

". . . But that's a bit . . . I mean you might . . . fall."

The figure seemed to move, seemed to shudder, but it could have been the wind pulling at his clothes.

"Don't you want any ale?"

" . . . Thirsty. . ." Frodo muttered hoarsely, and the face he turned to them was a mask of gleaming white, hovering in the darkness. The eyes were like two dark hollows, black pits that were deeper, vaster than the sky pressing down on them. He definitely moved this time, swaying slightly with a slow, uneven rhythm that had nothing to do with the wind.

"Frodo!" Pippin cried, suddenly quite sober, as Merry said at the same time: "I'm getting Gandalf."

"No!" came the grating cry, then softer, "No, no I'm . . . I'm alright." A harsh laugh, and the stars seemed to flinch, dancing in his hair. Breathing in unevenly as his body shuddered again, (_Why am I so hot?_) he pressed his hands - _hand_, he hissed and recoiled in pain, almost losing his balance - to the rough, weather-worn stone and pushed himself up until he was standing on shaky legs. Merry and Pippin were frozen beneath him, but he didn't pay them any mind, instead facing out into the city.

The tower - and lesser towers - weren't exactly glimmering in the night sky - despite the starlight they were barely shadows, illusions of their former daylight glory. The flickering, glimmering lights of the city below were a mocking reflection of the stars, a discordant orange to their pure white. Baring his teeth, he swung his body around (_Head hurts head hurts hand hurts_) until he was facing outward, onto the emptiness, the plain before the gates of the city and the torn remnants of the siege shrouded now by darkness. Darkness. It was all darkness below him.

He was laughing again, laughing though he didn't know why, and it rose like black vultures into the night, blocking out the light of the stars and nesting in the dark pit below him. Merry and Pippin called out to him again, their voices like discordant piping in his ears. His laughter was like a cloak, and he clothed himself in it, its dark feathers covering him, muffling all other sounds. _Sam_ something whispered deep inside of him, still clear despite its softness. _Sam_.

He swayed again, almost stumbled, and raised his hands involuntarily to catch himself on something that wasn't there, and then froze in that position. The night wind rose like breath from the darkness below and he imagined he could feel it ruffling feathers (_so hot so hot so hot_), and he lifted and spread his arms wider to catch it, right hand throbbing, throbbing . . .

He could, he could . . . It would be so easy now, to give into that wind . . . surely it would hold him up, surely he could lean further, as he was leaning into it now, and if it couldn't, well, then, the darkness would cushion him, yes, would comfort him, would devour him and take him and then he wouldn't . . . he wouldn't . . .

The wind howled through the teeth of the wall and he echoed it with a howl of his own (_hurts_) as it pushed against him and he pushed against it and suddenly there was something banding around him, knotted tight as if to hold him together, a piece of rope to tie together a rag-tag of bits and pieces. And he was flying then, not forward but backward, and the vultures screamed as they retreated into the darkness, his feather cloak falling to pieces even as whiteness replaced the darkness and he knew no more.

**********

Sam arrived at the point of the wall that held the other three hobbits at the same time as Gandalf and Strider, Merry and Pippin's desperate cries circling his head and pressing inwards to crush him. He heard the howl as if it were the darkness itself, and he saw the figure standing, swaying on the wall with arms spread wide and for a moment, for an instant, it was Gollum teetering on the edge of the Crack of Doom, emaciated, wasted, and yet triumphant at last. But where that one had held in his hand a finger, this one's hands were empty. Doubly empty, Sam realises, as a bandage flashes a dirty white, a mocking reflection of the stars . . .

He wasn't sure if it was his own cry he heard (_precious_) when that figure began to tilt toward the darkness . . . as if it were swaying slightly by accident in the wind but no . . . no, it was moving _against it_. And then there was a burst of white light that gripped the small figure, - _Frodo, Frodo_ \- encircling his waist and pulling him back, pulling him in.

The wizard cradled the hobbit's body to his own, wrapping white robes around him until only the splash of dark hair resting on the white shoulder remained. Aragorn appeared from behind, a mere candle of brightness to Gandalf's bonfire, and reached in to lay a hand gently on Frodo's forehead. Frodo moaned, muttered, tossed his head and was still. Aragorn's face was grave.

"It is as we feared," he said sombrely. Another unidentifiable noise emerged from Sam's throat as his mind recalled his own dread . . . _No, no . . . please not. Please not. Please not . . ._

"He is feverish, and in dire need of aid. Come, quickly now!" And he and Gandalf rapidly - almost running - retreated back a short distance along the wall, down the narrow stair and into the city.

"Sam . . ." came a soft cry from whence they retreated, so soft Sam could almost believe he imagined it, but for the agony and need and familiarity of that voice. "_Sam_ . . ."


	5. Falling (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo's on the edge. Set during RotK (in Minas Tirith)

Sam had thought nothing could be worse than the rending sound of his master's cries from the other room, but that was until they had fallen silent.

Sitting in the small antechamber, he remembered the events from what seemed hours - but must have been moments ago. "There's nothing you can do," Strider had said. "He can't recognise you, he doesn't even know where he is. Please, it would be best if you waited outside."

"_Yrch_ . . ." Frodo had hissed, bloodless lips stretching over bared teeth, arching up on the bed against the hands that struggled to hold him still.

"Sam, please! Just go! You don't want to see this." The king was almost begging. It was that - and the unfamiliar tone of desperation in his voice - perhaps more than the words themselves that convinced Sam - against every fibre of his being - to do what Strider had asked. If the ranger, with his elven coolness and utter self control, was this concerned . . . So he had left.

_I should have stayed. I should have stayed in there. He needs me. I promised never to leave him, and how is this any different?_ He berated himself, alone in the regally decorated room, choking on the silence around him.

He was alone, and Frodo - for all the expert care he was getting - was alone as well. Alone and without his Sam. Perhaps Gandalf had sensed this, sensed Sam's despair even as Frodo revealed his through the endless cries.

"Samwise," a weary-eyed Gandalf had said, somehow still audible through the sounds of despair that flew about on panic-stricken wings, coming from the adjacent room, striking the walls and harrying Sam's ears.

The wizard glided toward him, slightly soiled white robes hovering just above the ground. "Aragorn is right. There's nothing you can do."

"Sam..." the other hobbit's cries belied their words, sinking on a gasp and rising up again to take flight. "Please... Sam!"

Gandalf's hand rested heavily on Sam's quivering shoulder. "It's just the fever talking," he said softly. "Aragorn will take care of him. He'll be as good as new by the morning. Maybe you should get some rest of your own? There is no need for you to get distressed sitting in there with Frodo when there's nothing more you can do for him."

"Begging your pardon, Mr Gandalf sir," Sam had replied, amazed at the fact that his voice was able to stay so stable when it struggled to ascend to the heights of the other hobbit's. "But I'm gettin' more distressed - as you put it - sittin' out here hearin' him callin' for me - fever or no."

The wizard's mouth opened slightly, as if he were about to respond, but Sam quickly spoke up again. "Me an' him we've . . . we've been through worse spots than this. And . . . and . . . we've always been through it together." He had to stop then, as his voice cracked on the last word, cracking and bleeding open with a salty, coppery heat. "And, if you'll forgive me sayin' so, sir, I've seen him in a lot more distressing states that this one here."

He had looked up into the wizard's gleaming eyes, blue and buried deep amongst craggy flesh and bristling eyebrows.

"And this is just the memories he's recallin'. . ." The eyebrows tensed with something (_regret? Anger?_), though if it were because of the hobbit's words or the sobs echoing in the chamber, Sam couldn't tell. He ploughed on. "We been through them when they happened, and I sorely doubt if these fever-memories could be worse."

Suddenly all fell silent.

"Strider may not want to see this," Sam whispered. "But I bet I seen worse."

"Gandalf!" Aragorn's voice was harsh, urgent. The wizard gave Sam's shoulder a brief squeeze before rapidly going to the chamber's adjoining door, glancing over his shoulder at the hobbit before shutting it firmly behind him. And he hadn't come out again.

And now it was so quiet.

_I shouldn't have left him . . ._

"Is Frodo alright?"

Two tense faces peered down at him earnestly, features tight with concern. Pippin hiccupped, and Sam grimaced. "His hand," he said roughly. "It's infected. He has a fever. Or had a fever," he added, running his hands through his hair cruelly. "I don't know, no one's come out here to tell me anything."

"Why aren't you in there? -Ow!" Pip exclaimed as Merry elbowed him. "Well I was just *asking*," he said indignantly to his cousin. "I thought they were inseparable."

Sam hissed, hardly recognising the sound as coming from him, and rose violently, going toward the door then stopping as immediately as he had started, standing before it with fists held tightly beside his hips, teeth clenched.

As if by the supreme force of his will, the door suddenly opened. "Sam," Aragorn said, the weariness making his voice threadbare. His eyes flickered over Merry and Pippin, then back to the motionless hobbit. "The fever's broken. He's sleeping. You can come in now."

Frodo looked more dead than asleep, a small, angular shape in the middle of a ruffled expanse of white. Sam, as if to verify Strider's words, climbed up onto the bed without a glance toward the ranger or the wizard and pressed his hands tenderly to Frodo's throat, forehead, hands. Wordlessly, Gandalf handed him the soft, damp cloth he was pressing to Frodo's wan forehead.

Settling himself down, Sam drew Frodo's injured hand - swollen with pristine white bandages - into his lap.

"We had to lance the wound," Aragorn explained, almost apologetically. Sam ignored him, or rather all his attention was on Frodo. He pressed the cloth gently to Frodo's wrist, feeling the agitated, fluttering pulse there, and stroked up carefully to the elbow. Frodo remained still.

Gandalf and Aragorn exchanged a glance, and the king took a deep breath. "Sam," he began soberly, drawing up a chair to sink down wearily, mirroring the wizard's position on the opposite side of the bed. Sam smoothed the cloth along Frodo's collarbone, wiping away the salty residue clinging there. He paused for a moment, his other hand resting on the hollow of the hobbit's throat, cupping the frail pulsebeat in his palm.

"They hurt him," he murmured softly, careful not to disturb the sleeping figure, not taking his eyes - or hands - off him. "And now he hurts himself." He looked up at them almost defensively. "It's not his fault. He can't help it. It's like . . . it's like . . ." He swallowed, forcing his rising voice down, and continued in a whisper. "It's like he's forgot everything else. Like the ring . . . Burnt it all away. Like that wretched Gollum bit it off." He caressed the face with the cloth, as if he were wiping away tears. The dusky curls were pressed flat against the skin, and they clung to Sam's hand lovingly when he ran his fingers through their dark depths, exposing the fragile hair line.

"Maybe you need to help him remember, Sam." Gandalf's voice was a low rumble in the silence of the room. "Maybe you could remind him of some things more worth remembering."

"I . . . try." It was almost a sob. "And . . . and he tries. I know he tries." Sam wished it didn't sound as if he were trying to convince himself. Aragorn made a slight movement, as if he were about to reach out to the figures on the bed, but he halted himself and remained perched on the edge of the chair. The white tree embroidered on his high-necked coat seemed almost wilted, the stars dim and lifeless.

"I just . . . don't know what to do any more. At least . . ." and he had to pause here, had to pause and force himself not to swallow something that seemed so wrong . . . "At least when we were in Mordor there was . . . there was some goal we were moving towards. Some purpose to focus everything on, and even when things got too hard . . . too hard for him to carry on, almost, there was . . . there was somethin' I could do about it." He closed his eyes, and even the feel of Frodo's skin against his hands was lost as he remembered . . . more than remembered, he swore he could hear the breathless whisper, with more fear or despair than voice in it, _"help me Sam . . . help me . . ."_ and then the slackness and the weak trembling of relief and release he could feel through the frail, dirt-bitten hands pressed between his own.

"But it's different here." He laughed, hardly making a sound, just a bitter shaking that travelled fitfully through his body. "Different everywhere." Tenderly, oh so tenderly he traced his coarse hands over the carved lines of Frodo's face, thumbs mapping cheekbones and jaw, fingertips dancing over but hardly touching bruised eyelids. He smoothed the dark eyebrows and traced a finger down the long, straight line of the nose. He longed for the mouth to open, for the lips to glow and gleam in an open smile, longed to see the tiny gap between the front teeth.

"Maybe not different enough," Aragorn murmured, almost to himself. Sighing, he glanced at Gandalf as he slowly rose. "But for now, he needs his rest more than anything else. Send for me if there's any change. I'll be back at sunrise." He glanced at the window briefly. "Which is not far off."


	6. More Than Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some healing goes on . . . slash. Quite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first blatantly slashy piece.

Strider and Gandalf had long since come and gone, as had the too-noisy Pippin and Merry. Legolas and Gimli had even visited briefly, the dwarf's rough baritone contrasting sharply with the lilting cadences of the elf's voice. Frodo had opened his eyes for a time, gracing them all with a wan, washed out smile that never quite reached the still depths of his eyes.

He slept now, all traces of the fever flushed out of his body, the skin once again down to its smooth, pale colour, no longer with a sheen of sweat. Back to normal, and yet . . . not. The skin was _too_ pale, the flesh clinging a little too closely to the bones beneath, and though the lips and face were no longer fever-flushed, nor indeed deathly grey, they lacked the warm bloom of health that the Frodo of Sam's treasured memories recalled.

Sam - who had long outweighed his fear of what others would say with his need to protect and comfort his master - curled his arms tighter about Frodo and tried to push away the splinter of doubt that worked its way deeper.

_Try to talk to him_ Gandalf had murmured before departing. _And allow him to talk to you. You're his last hope, Samwise. Heal him. Only you can._

Talk to him? Talk to Mr Frodo? It seemed such a little thing, and yet so hugely impossible. It was true - the bond he had with Frodo went deeper than all the roots in Bag End's gardens, deeper than those in Lórien, even, deeper than anything Sam had ever known. He _would_ follow Frodo to the ends of Middle-Earth . . . and beyond. He once more remembered kneeling at the Pass of Cirith Ungol, staring as if bewitched at the gleaming point of Sting . . .

It was love. Sam knew it was love, just as he knew a seed needed water to grow, a plant needed sunlight to live - but it was a love that had never been acknowledged by him or Frodo - at least not aloud, in words to eachother. _Try to talk to him._ Sam snorted. _May as well ask the rain to fall up!_

And yet . . .

_Oh Frodo, _Frodo_, if only I _could_ heal you, if only I could breathe that life back into you, make you forget all those horrible things that stops you from livin' for yourself again . . ._

Raising himself up on an elbow and bracing a hand on the other side of Frodo's unmoving form, he gazed down at the still face. Even in sleep the forehead was tense, the jaw clenched tight. _If only . . ._ He leaned down further and softly pressed his mouth to the hollow of Frodo's throat, feeling smoothness and warmth on his lips. He caressed the butterfly heartbeat beneath, loving it, encouraging it, willing it to strengthen, to thrive. He rose slightly, closing his eyes tightly at the loss of the dusky, familiar smell, before descending again to trap the pulse at the tender join of Frodo's neck and jaw. Frodo turned his head slightly, stretching away from Sam's mouth even in sleep, and Sam eagerly brushed his lips along the exposed flesh this presented.

_Maybe usin' my mouth for talkin' won't do no good,_ he mused, _but I'll be a dwarf if I can't do nothing for him with it._ He moved again, stroking Frodo's face with soft, warm breaths before gently kissing his eyelids, willing them to open, to reveal once more the blue depths of Sam's memory, reflecting the summer skies over the Shire with their warmth and laughter. He tilted his face downward again, tracing the tip of his nose against the long, delicate line of Frodo's, leaning, his mouth hovering scant inches above the other's lips, heating them with his breath, and then . . . Frodo's eyes opened.

Sam froze, Frodo's eyes staring up at and locked into his. Sam's world shrank, or Frodo grew, until all he saw, all he knew were those twin rings of brilliant blue, encircling inky black irises still swollen with sleep.

"Mr Frodo, I -" his voice was rough, harsh, a rumble that disturbed the silent rhythm of Frodo's breath. "Please . . ." it sank to a whisper that yet held a wealth of emotion, and he didn't know if whether he was begging Frodo's forgiveness of the situation or begging those eyes to stay, stay open, to never close again . . .

And suddenly the eyes did close, and the head moved, oh so slightly up, and Sam's world spun and leapt as lips - warm and moist from his own breath - pressed against his. His own eyes closed then, sinking shut as if he hadn't the strength to keep them open any longer, but the darkness was warm there, filled with the sensation of Frodo's mouth, softer and sweeter than he remembered.

He opened his eyes again and realised that somehow Frodo's arm was curled around his shoulders, and somehow his own arm was no longer supporting him and that instead he was lying over Frodo's chest, his head cradled in the curve of Frodo's shoulder, face turned in to press against the side of Frodo's neck. He could feel the heartbeat now, and it was faster, and he could feel it pulsing through the body beneath him even as his own body trembled. He caught his breath as he felt Frodo's cheek brush his own, and they both pulled back slightly to allow their lips to meet again. Sam groaned as he felt rather than heard the small noise Frodo made as his master's lips softened and parted slightly, allowing Sam stroke the impossibly smooth inside with his tongue, to run it across the ivory slickness of teeth.

"Frodo . . ." he murmured again, but the word was merely ingested and consumed into the other as he drew Sam's lower lip into his mouth. Sam shuddered, and pushed in further . . . if only . . . but maybe he could . . . Not daring to break contact, he trailed his lips from the other's mouth, kissing along the firm line of the jaw and up to the temple, feeling the sensation of Frodo's eyelashes tickling the corner of his mouth shiver through him . . . He moved on, across the forehead, down to the other temple, the other cheek and jaw, losing himself in a soft place just below Frodo's ear, the sound of gasping breaths mingling with the rich scent . . .

And then Frodo was arching against him, struggling for more contact this time, not to escape, pressing his chest against Sam's and tangling his hands in the sandy hair and guiding the head further. Sam's mouth slipped down at Frodo's urging, stroking the smooth line of the neck and sucking on the tight muscle that angled shoulder to neck. Running his teeth along the straight line of collarbone, he came once again to the column of Frodo's throat, this time claimed it, licking it eagerly and feeling it move, move with _life_ as Frodo gasped and swallowed beneath him.

_Heal him_ Gandalf's words echoed in Sam's mind. _Only you can._

Panting heavily, Sam rose from his worship of Frodo's skin, but any words he might have spoken were frozen on his lips as he saw the desperation in Frodo's eyes. The need. The darkness, warring and roiling within him to regain its hold. Frodo's uninjured hand reached up to cup Sam's face, speaking oh so eloquently without speech, thumb stroking a cheekbone and begging _Help me. Heal me_ In response, Sam leant down once more, not intending to rise again, and placed a chaste kiss on Frodo's lips, pouring into it his love, his promise . . . _Anything. Always._ Other kisses followed, forging a line over Frodo's chin, down the throat again and into the small u-shaped hollow where a quickening heartbeat was cradled and further, directly down the breastbone and lingering over the heart. Gentle, sun-browned hands caressed cold scars, smoothing away their ache and sickness, even as Frodo's pale, slender fingers delved into honey-coloured curls.

All Sam's awareness was focussed on the contact of his mouth on Frodo's skin, intent and intense as if he could suck the darkness out of his master and replace it with a life force of his own . . . The flesh seemed to glow where he touched it, shine with an inner light as if he were wiping away the oily residue of years from a lamp's glass casing. He groaned softly, wordlessly, with the warmth that came with that light, suddenly eager to reveal as much of it as possible. Hurriedly pushing away the rest of the bedding, Sam ran his hands along the exposed limbs reverently, soon replacing his touch with his mouth. His lips caressed the bulb of a delicate ankle, whispered wordlessly up the length of a shin, kissed the tender skin behind the knee. The legs parted as he stroked his lips up the inside of one smooth, alabaster thigh, and the whole body shuddered when he withdrew momentarily to focus again on shoulder and arm, tongue tracing circles on the inside of Frodo's elbow, licking the slender pulse at the wrist, gently kissing the tips of fingers visible above the bandage.

And then _he_ was lying on his back on the bed and Frodo was above him, straddling him, fumbling one-handedly with the lacings of his breeches, diving down even as Sam arched, their mouths opening to eachother and even more, wider and wider in silent cries as they tried to consume eachother, or fill eachother, or both.

"Sam . . . need . . ." whimpered Frodo, the desperation of the moment flooding his voice.

"Shhh Frodo," Sam whispered in reply, his hands finding the other's waist and running his thumbs over the prominent hip bones. He shifted slightly, raising himself until he was half sitting, and Frodo's hands fluttered on his chest, struggling with the buttons of his shirt before pushing it over his shoulders and off his arms. Sam's hands slid around and up Frodo's back, once again tracing the corrugated line of his spine as Frodo leaned forward and pressed down, pressing his bare chest to Sam's as if he could melt into the other's flesh and be consumed . . .

Sam could feel the hotness of Frodo's gasp against his neck as the gardener shifted his hips oh so slightly . . . and then again, and again, seeking a rhythm to communicate rather than merely comfort. To communicate something more than words . . . The embodiment of their love, love that could never be spoken, not for shame, but because it lacked sufficient words to express . . . Frodo shuddered and cried out, his lips begging on Sam's neck. Sam's own mouth found the wound on Frodo's shoulder, and even as he pulled Frodo impossibly closer with his arms, his mouth claimed the cold fold of darkness lurking within the flesh, and his tongue pressed to the length of it, heating it, sucking at it, desperate to draw it out, to ingest it into himself if need be, but just to . . .

". . . Need . . . need . . . _you_ . . ." Frodo gasped, shuddering again and pressing himself to Sam somehow closer, and then Sam was sure that they _were_ melting together, were consuming eachother, and he couldn't tell where his body began and Frodo's left off, and he could feel the cold pain in his shoulder and the aching emptiness wailing deep within him, and then . . . and then . . . a light seemed to burst from within him, _or was it within Frodo?_ and they were both crying out as one into eachother's mouths, _mouth,_ and then all was still, and warm, and bright.

"I love you," one of them whispered, was it out loud? And maybe, Sam mused, Gandalf was right after all.


	7. Darkness and Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo thinks about darkness and light. Set in Minas Tirith, post-War of the Ring during RotK.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arwen's dialogue taken directly from the text.

Sam. Sam. My love. My hope. My comfort. My light, when all other lights went out.

And yet even your brightness is not enough to conquer this darkness.

You dispelled it, for a time, an instant, a flash of light and life and love that I rode out and clung to with the force lent to me by your strong body against mine. But the darkness has crept back now, making me wonder if it was ever really gone, and the warmth of your body curled atop me is nothing against the black weight of it.

Sam.

Arwen Undómiel gave me a token, a pendant - her evenstar, and it shines with all the brilliance of Galadriel's phial as I weigh it in my palm. "When the memory of the fear and the darkness troubles you," she told me, "this will bring you aid."

And it does. It burns me, Sam. Burns beyond my flesh and ravages the darkness within me, sends it hissing like steam as it recoils. Burns me as you did, Sam, setting me alight when the darkness pressed so near I longed to suffocate in it just to end the torment of it.

I have no need to seek pain with the evenstar. For I was mistaken before, mistaken in thinking that the darkness was an emptiness I needed to fill, even if with pain. For I know now, know through the way both you and I can feel it, touch it and fight it within me that the darkness isn't nothing - it is everything. I am infected, swollen with it, and no lancing will drain it, and I know now that the light of pain and painful memories, though bright against it, serve only to feed it in the end.

And your light, Sam, your light is so much different - it is pure and fresh, and banishes the fear and the darkness, it is whole and bright like the sound of elves singing, of clear bells ringing.

Do you remember that, Sam? It must have been the first time we encountered the Black Riders, and they were driven away by the sound of Gildor's company approaching.

But the Riders came back. Just as the darkness came back, even as our sweat and bodies mingled and the echo of words filled this chamber, even as you shifted further around me and fell heavily into sleep - it returned. Hissing, writhing, crawling over my skin it enveloped me once more, sluicing away the love and light that had held me moments before.

I can't do it, Sam. I can't bear it much longer. Boromir was right when he said it, so long ago now . . . I will beg for death before the end. For something worse than death is now taking me, and I don't know how, where I can escape to. I envy Gollum, now, wishing that I had been the one burnt up, devoured and consumed along with that which causes me such anguish.

Your light, Sam, your light will sustain me for perhaps a little longer, but even that will come to an end. The darkness is growing stronger. I feel it even now, in this white city, and I know it will not abate. Eventually it will become immune to the brightness of your love, and swallow me up forever.

The evenstar. The evenstar has a light, a brilliance as pure, yet not as warm, as yours. It sings a long, clear note when I hold it, one that pierces through me and stabs a thread of light into the darkness - a thread that burns up all around it. I close my eyes when I feel it, not icy like the Morgul-blade sliding into my flesh, not burning like pincers on the back of my neck but beyond these. Beyond hot and cold and simply _sensation_, the sensation of this strand of light whose origins lie in the evenstar and whose end disappears into the West.

The West.

Arwen said something else to me, Sam.

"In my stead you shall go, Ring-bearer, when the time comes, if you then desire it. You may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed."

The evenstar, this promise of healing, rests bright and whole on my breast even as the ring burned blackly. It pulls at me, Sam. I feel the thread tugging at me when you lie sleeping at my side and I would wake you but for the fact that I cannot move for the heaviness within me. It pulls me West. Pulls me, with the promise of its source, the promise of a conflagration that will burn away this darkness forever, leaving me whole, pure.

And I cannot always be torn in two, Sam. Your healing will not always be enough.

I will choose the evenstar.


End file.
